Language that would ban online pornography has been dropped from a report approved by the European Parliament. But major concerns over the future of Internet privacy remain as legislators themselves were blocked from reading constituents' complaints.

Members of the European Parliament voted 368-159 in favor of
passing a report titled “Eliminating gender stereotypes in the
EU.”

The rejection of a controversial “porn ban” proposal has
seemingly become a major victory for online freedom. But the result
was “a little bit unclear,” Christian Engstrom, MEP with
Sweden's Pirate Party, told RT.

“The European Parliament said no to turning Internet service
providers into porn police, and they said no to setting up
authorities to regulate media,” Engstrom explained, adding,
though, that the European Parliament still expresses support for an
older resolution to ban pornography.

The particular clause has been dropped from the text of the new
resolution, but it still contains references to an earlier resolution passed by the parliament in
1997 which calls for “statutory measures to prevent any form of
pornography in the media and in advertising.” Although the
resolution is not legally binding, it can be used as a basis to
form legislation.

The “gender stereotypes” report was first introduced back in
December 2012. The porn-blocking proposals were suggested by MEP
for the Dutch Socialist Party Kartika Tamara Liotard, and went
mostly unnoticed until some of the MEPs sounded the alarm in March
calling on citizens to protest the measure.

The controversy further escalated after hundreds of e-mails sent
to MEPs about the vote were blocked.
Engstrom was one of the MEPs outraged by the interference by the
European Parliament’s IT department to filter politicians’
mail.

“I wrote a letter to the president of the European
Parliament, complaining and saying that I find it completely
unacceptable, if the Parliament’s IT support department suddenly
decides to block communication from my voters,” Engstrom told
RT.

“My job as an elected parliamentarian is to be in contact
with citizens and voters,” he added. “I find it unacceptable
that the Parliament blocks that.”

Similar tactics to shield MEPs from the voice of the people were
used during the worldwide protest against the Antipiracy Trade
Agreement (ACTA) which is seen as a direct attack on privacy and
freedom on the Internet.

Although ACTA was rejected by most of the European Parliament,
activists are concerned that legislators are still looking for
alternative routes to impose censorship under the guise of
copyright protection or protecting audiences from harmful
information.

“In general we see this trend with many different actors
wanting to censor the Internet, wanting to control the
Internet,” Engstrom said. “So what we’re doing is trying to
defend the freedom of the Internet, because we believe it is
absolutely essential in a free and open society to have a free
Internet, without censorship and without a lot of
surveillance.”

Meanwhile, at the level of member states EU legislators are also
mulling the idea of banning pornography. Last December the UK
became the first country to try and block access to all pornography
websites. The idea however was rejected over the lack of public
support.

Later in February, Icelandic legislators revealed that they are
looking for the best technical ways to “tackle porn on the
Internet,” raising concerns that Iceland’s online pornography
censorship scheme would be implemented all over the EU.